For centuries, wild and domesticated animals in Spain’s countryside grazed at the edges of forests, clearing underbrush and providing a natural protection against forest fires encroaching onto cities and towns. After an era of deforestation, some of these forests are returning, but without the animals that created that fire buffer. Gerry Hadden reports that, in Catalonia, shepherds are now being trained to start “fire flocks,” or herds of sheep that will once again graze to prevent the wildfires.
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